When Facebook launched the 2.0 version of its iPhone app in September of last year, it was a huge upgrade from its original app that launched with the App Store last July. And now it’s on the verge of launching the 3.0 version of the app, and having tested it today, we can safely say that it once again takes Facebook on the device to the next level. In fact, it may be the most useful app on the iPhone now, period.
This new version simply improves upon the old one in just about every way imaginable. Not only does it have a wide range of new options and features, many of which we went over previously, but it’s actually faster. And the design is rather brilliant. Built by Facebook engineer Joe Hewitt, the app manages to maintain the good practices found in many iPhone apps, while at the same time creating its own unique look and feel.
Features
Nowhere is this new look more evident than on the new Facebook home screen. It’s sort of like the iPhone main screen, but with a different, distinctive design. The large buttons are easy to hit, and best of all, you can add people’s profiles and pages as icons as well, to provide shortcuts to your favorites.
The main screen that you were probably used to from the old app now resides in the upper left corner of the main screen, as the “News Feed.” It largely looks the same but the ability to “like” items has been added to the ability to comment on them. You can also now easily take and post videos if you have an iPhone 3GS. Hitting the “News Feed” button in the upper right hand corner, allows you to sort this feed by the various filters you’ve set up.
The “Profile” area is the next button on the main screen. The overall look and feel have been updated, and now also include the “like” and “comment” elements on the Wall. You can also now see your profile pictures.
The “Friends” area has been updated to include both Friends and Pages. But a killer feature may be the ability to hit the phone icon and have the option to call or text your contacts. People who consider Facebook to be their contact list, will love this.
The “Inbox” is the next main area, and it now features not only new messages, but updates from your groups, and sent messages. But the best thing about this feature is how fast messages load. It’s leaps and bounds better than trying to load messages on the regular Facebook, and I think from now on I’ll simply use the app to respond to any emails I get through it.
The “Chat” and “Requests” areas remain largely the same, though both have been cleaned up.
The big new feature of this app has to be “Events”. The lack of a way to even see events in the previous version of the app was a major complaint against it — it had people using the web interface to log-in specifically to find events. Now, not only can you see them in the app, you can see details like the address of the event and host of it. And you can RSVP, and you can see who else is attending. With so many Facebook users now using its events feature for social gatherings, it simply made no sense not to have this in there. The Events area also features a “Birthdays” tab to specifically see which of your friends’ birthday is coming up.
The “Photos” area now allows you to create new photo albums, and it is significantly easier and more obvious as to how to tag someone in a picture. And at last, Facebook photos allow you to take advantage of the iPhone’s multi-touch to pinch zoom in and out of pictures.
The last main page element is “Notes,” which is new. You can see, edit and create new notes from here, just in case your Status Updates don’t give you enough room for all you want to say.
Below the main elements is the “Notifications” area that seems to update in near real-time when someone comments or “likes” one of your items or an item you’ve commented on.
What’s Missing
As good as this new Facebook iPhone app is, there are still some missing features. The two biggest ones are Push Notifications and a robust search. Hewitt had mentioned previously that Push Notifications would not be in 3.0, but hinted that they could come in 3.1. He stated on Twitter that with 3.0 done, the work is already starting on 3.1.
When we asked him about any new features for that build, Hewitt said he wasn’t ready to comment on specifics yet. But it’s probably a good bet that Push Notifications will be one of them. And earlier today, he also noted that there will be a landscape mode in 3.1. And he’s also noted that videos recorded on the iPhone 3GS don’t yet play in the app because Facebook doesn’t encode them in an iPhone-compatible way. That should change soon too.
The bigger omission, as I see it, is the lack of a robust search tool. Facebook recently rolled out the upgraded search functionality on its site, but on the iPhone searching is limited to profiles and pages. Basically, it’s useless, as you can get much of this information from the Friends area. If Facebook is serious about search, it needs to make basically everything that gets updated on the site (allowed for by individual’s privacy settings, of course) searchable on its mobile app in real-time. That would be a killer feature.
Overall
Overall, the Facebook 3.0 iPhone app is a huge step forward as a social tool. In fact, in terms of the data it lets you access, it’s hard to argue that any app is more robust. It’s now basically a way to keep track of and remark about what your friends are up to, an always up-to-date contact list, a picture and video sharer, an inbox, an IM client, and a event coordinator, all tied to over 250 million social users.
With the additions of Push Notifications and a better search tool, it will be nearly perfect. And all of these new features wrapped into an app that is even zippier, makes this a great (and free) upgrade.
Update: Hewitt has just let us know about another really nice feature. If you tap the Facebook logo, you’ll automatically go back to the main home screen. Tap it again and you’ll return to where you just were. Subtle, but nice feature.
Flat Earth News.
Ha, but seriously this is funny because everyone hated the AOL client and urged AOL to move to the web because everything you could do on AOL was on the web, but here we have Techcrunch of all places basically praising what is basically Facebook’s version of the AOL client. The tech press has goes down the rabbit hole.
Can’t wait for Apple to approve it. Is def an app I use many times a day on my iPod Touch. Love the new home screen design.
I’m sure Apple will not approve it. If Google Voice could be rejected, why not Facebook 3.0?
No way can they reject this app. FB is a popular social network and if you reject it, you have to pay for it.
Especially if Apple do their “trick” of hunting for rude words and barring the app because of that (remember the dictionary?). I’m sure you could find plenty of them within peoples status updates and event details.
Don’t give them ideas.
Personally I fail to see why people do use the current version, it’s rubbish!
Have you looked at the difference between the news feed on the app and the website? You’re missing about three-quarters of the stuff and it’s often several updates out of sync.
In other words, it fails to do the one thing that it should do really well.
(mind you the iphone version of the website is equally as bad)
250 million people in your pocket….
(I got a party in my pants and everyone’s coming!)
I lol’d
LOL! Good one.
“It’s sort of like the iPhone main screen, but with a different, distinctive design” Interesting that it attempts to take over your iPhone in that way.
Who has dibs on breaking the news if Apple rejects the app?
if they reject one of the most popular iPhone Apps, Apple is toast. Considering how much bad-PR they got for denying the Google Voice App, I doubt they would risk making that mistake again!
Cool, the design is attractive and it looks very handy. It embeds enhanced features with improved apps from the previous version. Sure it would be the Facebook best app for iPhone But sad to note that search and push notifications are missing. They too are important.
Facebook is actually the next iteration of the entire web.
Surprisingly an app Android is STILL waiting for.
At least an “Official” version vs using Babbler.
,Michael Martin
GoogleAndBlog
Sure hope it makes it into the store this week.
Counting the seconds until a braindead App Store reviewer rejects it because the 9-box grid is already used as a keypad in the Dialer app.
Nice app! I wonder what the “iphone’s detractors” think of that….
they think ur gay
They should change their mobile marketing slogan to “built Hewitt-tough”.
Apple better get a move on and make it available.
This is my most used iPhone app by far.
Love this new app – great article and video. We’re covering this on tonight’s episode of Moxie Mo Show #96!
what does this have to do with twitter? get back on point!
So if eventually when everyone leaves the Website when everyone has a smartphone app, how will facebook monetize this app without intrusive advertising?
This application is so far only on the iPhone and the iPhone can not replace the internet as the prefered means of accessing Facebook. Even if that happens it wont be difficult to place ads on each page and modify the navigation so that people have to see as many of the adverts as possible on their iPhones.
I use an iPhone and dont think its going to be much of a problem, at all.
ahh, the internet… i can see it now!
Will there be a way to upload mobile photos/videos to one of the Fan pages I admin? I guess even just update those pages status’ etc..
I’m excited for the new icon!!!
Looks awesome. Mad props.
However, the biggest feature missing is geo-location / put-your-friends-on-a-map stuff. Everytime you open the app, it should grab your loc, and one of those big new buttons should just be ‘Map’. See where all your FB friends are. If FB started at colleges, then its location stuff can start with just iPhones. Both platforms (fb and iphone) are big enough to reach a critical mass neither Loopt nor Google Latitude haven’t hit yet.
That’s right, I’m responding to myself.
Two more thoughts:
One, it’s possible that Facebook doesn’t think that its users don’t want to know where each other physically are. Or that it would introduce a whole set of privacy settings and legal questions that it’s a hassle to deal with.
Two, big companies like to take baby steps. FB creeps towards making things more open and twitter-like (’everyone’ status option). Google slowly makes things more social in Google Reader (public likes, easy sharing, etc). This would be a similar baby-step w/ very simple privacy options: if you allow FB to share your location, all your friends can see you. If not, not. Only available through the iPhone app.
Geo-Location is done. It sounded cool in the beginning, then people realized that they don’t want people turning into stalkers. It’s over now, except for nerds, who for some reason love stalkers.
Does it have the ability to change your profile picture, and edit your profile in general? That’s what I’ve been waiting for…
You forgot Discussion Boards. This is one of the most widely used features, one of the most community oriented, and one of the most useful.
Any chatter about incorporating ‘foursquare’-like functionality? Being able to check-in, gain points, become mayor, track friend locations, etc. seems like a no-brainer add for the facebook iphone app…
you gonna be kidding us. There can’t be more useful application for iPhone than Twitter App.
FINALLY! I hate the old app, and have been waiting for this to release.
is it out yet or still pending review? looks cool
Not yet. appstore still has v2.5
It’ll probably be v5.0 by the time I get an iPhone
“Most useful”? I love Facebook as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t describe it as “useful”. Fun, yes.
Um, I use the app to keep in touch with my boss, friends on both coasts and even the oldest members of my family (right mom!)- I’d call it useful!!!
When are we going to get the ability to have outside applications send information to the calendar? Is apple ever going to let developers sync up with your phone properly?
What about a location-based mobile social network…Facebook should do it before Apple comes out with something native!!!
Why aren’t they doing it yet?
There are already several apps that do that.
Sweet! I really want video uploads straight to facebook that are also playable on the iphone
Congrats on Aubrey Sabala for her techcruch debut.
It is definitely not that ‘useful’, and hardly my most used app. My most used non-apple app a to-do style app, by far. The Facebook experience occurs best on a desktop, where you can fly through pages, pictures (full size), getting the ‘gist’ of all your friends in as short as possible. That’s my take though.
However, the app is looking great. Love the iphone homescreen style, I have a feeling Hewitt is starting a fad right there. The fact that you mentioned it’s actually faster will have me rushing to the app store to update.
This looks like it would port well to the Palm Pre. Is there any news on a Facebook app in the near future for the Pre?
sick.. I want it!
Not to he’s released the framework he developed to build this app as open-source. It helped me get my first app into the store. Joe’s freakin samurai.
http://joehewit...hree20-project/
Oh, that’s great. You forgot to tell me when it would be available:-) But I bet you don’t know…
This will be a welcome upgrade considering how out of date the current Facebook App is, but I think the recently released NPR App is the most incredible App I’ve seen yet..
Wow, this is absolutely cool.
This app is Rock!
Dude, what’s that sound in the background? Is someone going through a CAT Scan?
Apple should just use some of their $30+Billion dollars and buy FB, and kill mobileME.
What’s Facebook?
(Seriously, Safari is the best app on the iPhone, period. Next up is SMS and then, maybe, the phone dialer. Then the calendar and Worms. Worms rocks. Faebook has nothing on Worms. I get far more real social interaction with Worms than I do with Facebook. What I’m trying to say is; if your life is Facebook, then the Facebook app. is useful. For the rest of us, who use Facebook once a week at best, it isn’t.)
FB is great for social interaction, but http://www.clouding.me will be the next big app for media streaming & storage!
It’s great that they developed the new app. It seems that it is much better than the old one.
What’s the Android version coming out?
I hope they didn’t fix the bug that let me see other people’s (who are not on my friends list) private photo albums
nice!
Have to admit I’m as guilty as the next person of wasting a couple of hours every week on good ol crackbook, but wow – if this is “the most useful” app it sure says a lot about how much pointless garbage there is out there. 65,000 strong and still growing!
Let’s try this again and see if my comment can actually stay this time…
The home screen looks awful and I don’t see anything actually good about this app. Thanks for the warning so I know not to upgrade my current FB app.
I agree, the current version looks more like an app and less like a new skin over the iphone main menu. I see FB as a way in staying in touch with friends, this looks like an FBPhone and not an iphone. Apps should be kept simple and features should be integrated into apple’s base application suite (or other applications)
but then again… people still purchase the horrible alarm clock apps even though the standard alarm clock works great and can actually run in the background. (and lets not forget those amazing flashlight appz)
I can’t imagine anything more irritating than Facebook + Push notifications
I like facebook for it has a lot of users.